HELP!!! V. large expensive telly... large problems!

[elena2]

Dh indulged himself in the summer and bought a Samsung 42" telly. It didn't come cheap at £1200, but to his mind it was worth it.

About a couple of months after we bought it, it started turning itself off, as if it had gone into standby mode. Sometimes, after a few seconds, it switched itself back on, other times you had to go and switch it off with the main power button, leave it a bit and then switch it back on again.

As you can imagine, this got very annoying after a few times, and dh phoned Curry's where we got it from to sort it out.
Curry's said we couldn't have a new one as a replacement, as we had had it more than 28 days, but they would send an engineer out to fix it.

When he arrived I told him briefly what was going on with it, and he knew straightaway, without even looking at the telly, what the faulty part was. He said a month or two ago, Samsung had a warehouse with about 200 or more of these tellies in, all returned after the exact same fault, which had happened within the first 28 days. He said he'd lost count of how many he'd been out to and replaced with a 'modified' part that had gone after the 28 day return period. He then ordered the part, came and fitted it a week later and the problem was fixed.

HOWEVER, the bloody thing started turning itself off again at the beginning of November, obviously the same fault.

Dh was livid this time, and said he wasn't paying £1200 for a telly that broke twice in 5 months, and he wanted a replacement this time.
Curry's said the engineer was the only one who could authorise this, so they sent him out.
He said he could repair it again, and this time he had the part in his van to do straightaway, but if he repaired it, that would be the end of it and we couldn't have a replacement. He said he couldn't authorise a replacement as it was repairable, and we would have to take it up with Customer services.

Up to now, Dh has had numerous telephone conversations and has wrote 2 letters, and we have not received any acknowledgement whatsoever.
Supposedly, the 'Management Team' are dealing with it, they are unreachable by any method other than by letter.

The damn useless telly is sat in the lounge like an ornament, it's unwatchable as it turns itself off every 5 minutes, and it takes at least 10 attempts to get it to come back on agin, so the problem is even worse this time.
We've been having to watch the 21" telly from our bedroom for the last 5 or 6 weeks, and quite frankly we are VERY pi**ed off, but don't know what else to do.

Friends have suggested we take it down to our local Curry's, dump it in the showroom and make a huge fuss in front of all the customers, but I'm not sure that would have much effect, plus it wighs a ton, is huge, and probably wouldn't fit in the car anyway!

We're getting desperate!

Does anyone know if there's anyone we can contact to go on our behalf, or have any ideas on what we can do?

HELP!

Message withdrawn

It came with a year's manufacturors warranty I think.
That's another reason why we want a replacement, if the same fault keeps occuring, eventually the warranty will run out and we will be stuck with the useless bloody thing!

To be honest, in an ideal situation, I'd prefer to just have a refund, and get a Toshiba one instead! Several of our friends have a Toshiba one and have never had any problems, but we liked the Samsung one because it had a better 'screen surface', smooth instead of textured like most other tellies that size.

In your position I think I'd do the following:

• Call Curry's head office. Get the name/email address of the MD/General/Regional Manager, saying you want to complain in the strongest possible terms.
• Email them stating very clearly exactly what has happened, what you've done so far and complaining about the lack of response from your local store. Mention the Sale of Goods Act too (seem to think this says goods have to be fit for purpose and a tv that turns itself off is not! Expect someone else will know more or better. Maybe it isn't SOGA but worth a try!).
• Tell them the outcome you want and when you want it by i.e. we want a suitable replacement delivered to us by 6pm today while you are deciding how to rectify this blah de blah.
• Tell them what will happen if you don't get an appropriate response.(Trading standards, local paper etc) Call and speak to this person once you've sent the email and ask for them to call you back if you don't get though (which you probably won't, doubt you'll get past PA tbh but it might get some action).

With any luck the GM or whoever will put a rocket under the manager of your local store and you'll get a result. Anyway, that's what I'd do. Good luck and how annoying this must be.

Message withdrawn

elena - see below. The telly is clearly not fit for the purpose you bought it for ie to watch it. Go back to the shop and complain. If no joy got to the CAB who may direct you to Trading Standards. Good luck

The Trade Descriptions Act, 1968
The purpose of this Act is to prevent sellers from providing false descriptions of goods or services that they sell to the general public. The Act covers implied descriptions, such as illustrations which may mislead a purchaser. The Act also covers the spoken word, since the buyer will expect to rely on the specialist knowledge of the salesperson.

The Trade Descriptions Act, 1968 - The Sale of Goods Act, 1979 - Consumer Protection Act, 1987 - Health and Safety at Work Act, 1974

The Sale of Goods Act, 1979
Under this Act, goods or services must be:

as described
of merchantable quality
fit for the purpose for which they are intended
As described means that they must conform to the description as advertised or described by the salesperson. The Trade Descriptions Act covers this in more depth.

Of merchantable quality means that the product must work. This is true even if goods are bought in a sale, but there are the following exceptions:

if the defect is pointed out to the buyer
if the buyer has the opportunity to examine the goods before buying
private sales are exempt
cheap goods are expected to be less durable than expensive goods
‘shop soiled' goods or ‘seconds' are not expected to be of the same quality as firsts.
Fit for the purpose for which they are intended means simply that they must do the job for which they are bought. This holds true even if the salesperson indicates that the goods will do a specific job without any support from sales documentation or advertising.

If goods contravene any of these, the buyer is entitled to a refund, however:

the buyer may accept a replacement, but the seller is not obliged to offer one
a refund should be in cash, not a credit note
notices refusing to refund money are illegal, even for sale goods
there is no legal obligation to produce a receipt.
The buyer is not entitled to a refund if:

they change their mind
the product does not fit
they damage the product themselves
they did not buy the product themselves
The Trade Descriptions Act, 1968 - The Sale of Goods Act, 1979 - Consumer Protection Act, 1987 - Health and Safety at Work Act, 1974

Consumer Protection Act, 1987
This Act makes it an offence for a seller to:

make misleading statements about the price of goods or services
supply goods or services which are unsafe.
Misleading statements could include price comparisons with competitors or recommended prices, ignoring hidden extras such as VAT, service charges, etc., or false sale prices.

Unsafe goods could include toys which are not suitable for young children, or electrical equipment which is not properly insulated.

Thanks for that,

WXW, the customer services team refuse to give a telephone number or e-mail address for the GM/RM, and will only give an address to write to, which we have done with no response. We have since phoned several times, and keep getting told the matter is being dealt with by the team for the G/R Manager, and we should receive a response via letter in the next few days. So far nothing has arrived...

Tinker, cheers. Dh will phone again tomorrow quoting some of that.

Here's the customer services email address, got from the currys website.

[email protected]

Twenty eight days is an unreasonable length of time to expect a tv to start playing up. I read somewhere that goods of this calibre are expected to last 5 years without problems, regardless of their warranty. They are trying to fob you off. Good luck.

Currys are a nightmare, my digital cameras charging pod broke so i trotted off with it to currys and 7 weeks and many phone calls later it was returned.....with the actual camera broken. Theydd returned it without bubble wrapping it or anything and it was wrecked. So back to currys same day, off it went for repair again. Someone along the line had said after 4 weeks i could request a refund so i did, and surprise surprise, the camera turned up fixed the next day.
All the time i was down at the customer services desk i didnt hear one happy customer in real life or on the end of the phone, just the bloke saying Sorry Sir/Madam its customer policy. The same sentence over and over again. Good Luck you will need it.

Have you tried contacting Samsung direct???? I found this under their website For All Other Samsung Products:
Call 0870 242 0303
Open from 9am to 6pm weekdays
and 9am to 1pm Saturdays
All calls charged at National Rate

Currys sound like a B....y nightmare, maybe it is worth dropping a line to Watchdog. I hope you get it sorted out - good luck

ARGGGGGGGHHH...!
Just phoned Trading Standards and they basically said that if the year's warranty stated that they would replace it after it had broken 3 times, then all our rights are at this time is to have another repair! Apparently our statutory rights are no different to this either...

From what I read on the Sale of Goods Act, I thought we were fully entitled to a refund, due to it not being fit for the purpose for which it was bought - to watch it!

Feeling VERY stressed out now and pi**ed off..

Update - HOORAY!!!!!!
Curry's have finally responded and said we can have a new replacement telly!
We got a phone call on Monday from one of the Management team (very nice and apologetic), dh went through the problems again with her re the telly and she phoned back the next day.
Our telly has been discontinued (how unsurprising!) and we could go to Curry's and choose a replacement. Any difference in price would be refunded immediately!
So we chose a Toshiba one that was £400 cheaper, same size and everything!
We are so pleased, the saga has finally ended!

Thanks for everyone's advice.